Language translation is the transfer of the meaning of a text from one language to another for readership. Language translation methods have evolved over the years and vary from traditional human translation to machine translation to machine translation with a human translation component. Various pre- and post-translation editing techniques have also been employed to increase the accuracy of translated text. Human translators use a variety of thought processes, skills and resources to interpret the meaning of a sentence and communicate the meaning of that sentence in a different language. They are expert at the proper grammar, idiomatic turn of phrase, and specialty vocabulary areas, which ensures a translation that will be clearly understood in the target language. Understandably, the automation of this human process has proven to be challenging and costly, and to date the publication of translated documents often requires the involvement of a human translator acting as an editor.
With the advent of networked computers and the Internet, and the resulting cheap, instant global messaging, information retrieval, and file transfer capabilities, the need for improved, automated, and highly accurate translation capabilities is greater than ever. While human translation is unquestionably the preferred method for producing accurate and idiomatic translations, it remains prohibitively expensive and too time consuming to meet the new demands of businesses and individuals working at Internet speeds. Today, multinational corporations are communicating with their international offices and partners on a daily basis. In order for organizations to continue to maintain a competitive edge, personnel must have the ability to collaborate with colleagues around the globe. Successful partnerships with international colleagues require that personnel have access to immediate translations of foreign-language documents, intranet content, and cross-language communications via workgroups and e-mail.
Some Internet web sites allow a user to obtain a translation of a web page from one language into another, or allow the translation of a given textual matter from one language into another. Web sites such as www.altavista.com and its Babelfish™ program, for example, provide Internet access to machine translation tools which can translate text using one of the many methods of machine translation commonly known. Other systems, such as LanguageLine™ Services from AT&T™ provide fast voice translation services to assist with language translation needs via telephone. Unfortunately, such systems and/or web sites do not provide consistently accurate or context-related translations and are therefore not suitable for quickly and effectively translating broad ranges of communications.
Search engines are generally equally poor at translation. Search engines are not known to maintain databases in more than one language. If a user inputs keywords in the English language, the search engine will only search for web pages containing the English keywords. Therefore it is not likely that the search engine will discover web pages which contain the French translation of the input keywords, for example. Accordingly, in this example, although a web page drafted in the French language may be highly relevant to the English keywords and of particular interest to the user, the search engine is unlikely to detect the French web page. In addition, current search engines typically first return to the user abstracts or small portions of text from the web pages discovered during the search. If a web page happens to be in a foreign language, the abstract or text will be presented to the user in that foreign language. Accordingly, the user will not be able to understand the search results without retrieving the web pages and then translating the text. The quality of the search result can thereby suffer.
The language translation challenge is also significant in the context of e-mail and chat messages. Oftentimes, a user will desire to send a message to another party who is not fluent in the user's native language. Accordingly, the user will have to create the message in the native language, initiate some process for translating the message into the foreign language and then send the message to the other party. While software programs and Internet web sites exist for translating text from one language to another, such processes are burdensome to the user. The user's e-mail or chat applications must either be modified to include or configured to interface with translation software. The user is also required to take affirmative steps to ensure that the translation is performed prior to sending the message. This influences user interaction whether the message is in e-mail, instant message, short message service (SMS) or other format. Translation of SMS messages is particularly challenging given the myriad devices, operating systems, and networks involved in SMS messaging.
The present invention focuses on the development and improvement of machine translation efficiency, quality and accuracy.
It is thus one object of the present invention to provide a system for automatic translation of user defined communications in a computer network.
It is another object of the invention to provide improved language translation services to Internet users and remote device users while not requiring substantial modifications to the user's existing hardware or software.
It is another object of the present invention to provide highly accurate translations of textual communications through automated dictionary selection and deployment.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a quick, efficient method for machine translation over a computer network whereby dictionaries can be continuously augmented and adjusted for more accurate communications.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for machine translation over a computer network which allows users to communicate in different languages in real-time using specialized dictionaries.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a comprehensive, easy-to-access database of specialized dictionaries.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system for performing machine translation for different source languages, target languages, and sublanguages, and automatically sending the translated text via telecommunications links to one or more recipients in different languages and/or in different locations.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a system and method for enhanced levels of translation accuracy based on context recognition and sub-language dictionary application.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a system and method for text translation which is capable of being upgraded easily through subsequent dictionary inputs from users.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a system and method for accurate, real-time translation of various text messages, including SMS messages.